Catchfence

RED BULL RACING TEAM
BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY

Who: Scott Speed (82 Red Bull Toyota), Brian Vickers (83 Red Bull Toyota)
What: Food City 500 (Sprint Cup), Scotts Turf Builder 300 (Nationwide)
When: Friday-Sunday, March 20-22, 2009
Where: Bristol Motor Speedway, Bristol, Tenn.

+ BRISTOL: RISK VS. REWARD

As Red Bull Racing Team enters the spring’s so-called short track season, No. 83 driver Brian Vickers sits a comfortable 11th in points. He’s coming off his first top-five and third consecutive top-10 finish of the season March 8 at Atlanta.

“The 83 team has gotten off to a good start this season,” Vickers said. “We’ve overcome a tremendous amount of adversity to get to where we are. I’m so proud of this team — they never give up. We all enjoyed a weekend off, but now it’s back to work. We don’t want to lose focus or the momentum that is on our side right now.”

But NASCAR’s next stop — the crowded .533-mile bullring called Bristol Motor Speedway — has been to known to strip teams of early season momentum and leave them with nothing but deflated egos and demolished race cars.

“You learn what moves you can make and when you can make them,” Vickers said of racing at Bristol. “It’s basically managing risk. Risk versus reward — every lap, every turn. You’ve got to be aggressive and take some opportunities. But at the same time, it’s a small race track and accidents happen, and they happen often.”

Vickers has finished in the top 20 in five of his nine starts at Bristol, with a best start and finish of 12th in April 2005. Red Bull Racing Team’s best Bristol showing came in March 2007 when Vickers finished 15th after enduring blistering heat on his feet and rump thanks to a broken tailpipe.

+ NOT BAD FOR A FIRST-TIMER

Scott Speed’s first Bristol experience lasted a little more than 90 minutes when he battled the likes of Kyle Busch, Todd Bodine and Johnny Benson in last August’s Camping World Truck race. He qualified on the pole and finished third his first time out, and the race showed Speed how to attack Bristol’s high banks.

“You have to know when to push and when not to,” Speed said. “For the most part, we are all pushing close to 100 percent all the time. There’s not really a time during any race where you say, ‘I’ll just chill out and relax.’

“The difference is that you just get better being 100 percent. You make the same kind of decisions, but you’re able to pull them off without crashing. If you take it easy, you’re going to get passed because you’re slow.”
Speed is coming off a 35th-place finish at Atlanta, and his No. 82 Red Bull Toyota ranks 37th in the car owner standings — 30 points from the top 35. Beginning with the March 29 race at Martinsville, teams outside the top 35 must qualify on time.

“We lost some points we didn’t need to (at Atlanta),” Speed said. “It’s going to make it very difficult, no matter how good of a race we have at Bristol, to keep that thing in the top 35. But Bristol and Martinsville are tracks we are for sure going to be strong on.”

+ 300 + 500 = LONG WEEKEND

Scott Speed will have an extra 300 laps to prepare for Sunday when he drives Michael Waltrip Racing’s No. 99 Red Bull Toyota in the Nationwide Series race.

Saturday’s Scotts Turf Builder 300 will be Speed’s second start in a Nationwide car. He debuted last month at Las Vegas with a track record qualifying run, but was collected in an early accident and finished 40th.

Speed’s next scheduled Nationwide race doesn’t come until May 1 at Richmond. Brian Vickers returns to Braun Racing’s Toyotas on April 25 at Talladega.

Red Bull Racing Team, Press Release